Gender stereotypes also shape how women and men allocate their time between paid and unpaid care and domestic work as well as between work and leisure. Stereotypes that define caregiving as quintessentially female (and maternal) seem to be much harder to dislodge than those around breadwinning, previously seen as a male domain.117 Increasing numbers of women are adopting what are widely seen as masculine lifestyles and patterns of work by engaging more intensively in the labour market. However, men are not, to the same extent, taking on greater responsibility for unpaid care and domestic work, widely seen as ‘feminine’. Gender gaps in unpaid work are narrowing in developed countries, but they remain starker than those in market-based work virtually everywhere.118 Described as ‘a process of dehumanizing, degrading, discrediting and devaluing people in certain population groups’,119 stigma is a weapon employed by the powerful to define what is ‘normal’ or ‘acceptable’, as a means to uphold their position in relation to a subordinate group. Stigma and even violence are often used to enforce stereotypes and social norms about ‘appropriate’ female and male behaviour.120 Stigma is frequently invoked where gender intersects with other characteristics including disability and sexuality as well as poverty, race, caste, ethnicity and immigrant status. For example, immigrant, ethnic minority women working in domestic service are often stigmatized as being backward, dirty or carrying diseases, thereby justifying their subordinate position vis-à-vis their employers.121 Stigmatization has far-reaching consequences for the realization of economic and social rights: it renders the needs of certain groups and individuals invisible, pushes them to the margins of society and excludes them from access to resources and services, as Chapter 3 shows.122
Addressing violence against women
Men’s use of violence against women is widespread across all countries and socioeconomic groups. Globally, one in three women reports having experienced physical and/or sexual violence at some point in their lives, usually
perpetrated by an intimate partner.123 Changes in the prevalence of violence against women over time are hard to assess given a paucity of reliable and comparable data, but there is no doubt that it continues to be a very widespread problem. Over many decades, women’s rights activists and researchers have documented how gender inequality and men’s power over women create a conducive context for the perpetration of violence against women. As girls and women have entered schools, workplaces, public transport and marketplaces in greater numbers, they are frequently subject to unwelcome scrutiny, harassment and even assault. Violence is also used as a way to punish nonconformity with dominant gender stereotypes, for example in relation to sexual orientation (see Box 1.5). Violence against women also tends to increase during periods of upheaval and displacement associated with armed conflict and natural disasters, as well as in times of crisis and instability, when people are dealing with uncertainty. For example, domestic violence may increase when men are unemployed even if—sometimes especially if—women are bringing in income.124 In response to the massive mobilizations of women’s movements from the 1970s onwards, a range of countries has adopted legislation that criminalizes violence against women, as shown in Figure 1.1. However, the implementation of these legal provisions is rarely supported by adequate investments in services, in capacity building of service providers and in the public campaigns needed to effectively prevent violence against women. Addressing these deficits requires a significant investment in making homes and public spaces safe for women and girls and ensuring access to justice. It also requires a commitment from policy makers to prevent violence before it happens by changing community attitudes that accept it.125 Police services in some countries are starting to respond more effectively to violence against women, especially intimate partner violence. In